Nikko Co., Ltd.

Nikko Co., Ltd. is an asphalt plant manufacturer that boasts the No. 1 domestic market share in Japan. It boasts a history of having secured stable revenues by pursuing operational excellence that refines its internal operations.
Taking the longer view, however, it becomes difficult to see how the company will raise its corporate value by continuing on as it is. Corporate leadership felt a sense of urgency around the need to create the pillars of new growth.
The company had seen a variety of challenges manifest themselves, such as declining productivity in its execution of its business, including services that had become personalized in single individuals, and difficulties in securing personnel, all stemming from a customer-first philosophy that Nikko had long pursued on the ground.
To achieve further growth, Nikko would have to take on European and Chinese manufacturers in Asia. While the company enjoyed name recognition from one-off business opportunities, as a newcomer making a full-scale entry into the Asian market, it would also need steady sales activities to earn the trust of clients.
Even amidst these mounting challenges, Nikko leadership believed that they needed define their own future, incorporate that vision into the story they sought to achieve, have these ideas permeate on the ground, and transform the company’s very culture so that the company would be one that “regularized uniting to take on new challenges.” This led to them choosing ABeam Consulting as a partner.

Nikko pursued this project with a focus on shaping the outcomes while using their own capabilities to test feasibility and course correct as appropriate, rather than engaging in pie-in-the-sky thinking or accepting ideas imposed on them by consultants.
As project members investigated the issues, they improved the chances of transforming the business model by informing their loyal customers of business ideas such as a domestic subscription-model service, getting feedback from them and brushing up the service details, provision methods and provision price bands.
In entering overseas markets, project members not only sought to accurately grasp market needs by repeatedly interviewing potential local clients, and but also presented the reliability and service quality of Nikko plants, and improved the accuracy of their business plans in terms of local legal systems and product development aimed at market entry.

ABeam Consulting helped Nikko by providing frameworks for improving management, setting points for discussion, leading meetings, and creating spaces for everyone from division heads to key people on the ground could take the lead in exchanging views until they themselves were satisfied in their considerations of where they wanted to be through homework assignments and conferences.
To that point, leadership had run the business and made plans as an extension of what had come before, with the questions of how to maintain and expand revenue in mind. But now leadership took on the challenge of transforming the company’s culture to a more goal-oriented one where “Nikko would make its own future” amidst a changing market environment, where young employees among core team members formulating a vision for 2030, and where this would be incorporated into the medium-term business plan through backcasting.
This meant that the project would be more than just a chance to formulate and execute on a plan to transform the company’s long-term vision and business model, but would also serve as a chance for project members to “grow throughout the project period” as potential next-generation leaders.